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Papal candidates with a Latin
flavor
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
NCR Staff Rome
Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American prelates, members of the
Iberian-Latin American bloc in the College of Cardinals, who might
emerge as papabile: candidates for the next pope:
Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga:
Rodríguez Maradiaga, 58, archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, is widely
seen as a rising star in the Latin American church. He served as president of
CELAM, the federation of Latin American bishops conferences, until 1999,
and is well-known across the region. A Salesian, he speaks near-perfect Italian
(along with English). He is seen as articulate and passionate on justice
issues. He was part of a small group that met German Chancellor Gerhard
Schröder at a meeting of major economic powers in Cologne to hand over the
Jubilee 2000 petition for debt relief. Neoliberal capitalism carries
injustice and inequality in its genetic code, he said at a 1995 CELAM
meeting. Rodrídguez Maradiaga is, however, seen as a conservative on
theological issues. He is relatively young, which works against him, since many
observers believe the cardinals will not want a repeat of John Pauls long
papacy.
José da Cruz Policarpo: The patriarch of Lisbon,
Policarpo, 64, is not widely known outside the Portuguese-speaking world, but
that may change with his Feb. 21 elevation to the rank of cardinal. If so,
people may like what they hear. Policarpo has a reputation as a theological
moderate and has good academic credentials, having served as rector of
Lisbons Catholic University. Last September, Lisbon hosted an
international interreligious conference in the wake of Dominus Iesus,
the Vatican document that asserted non-Catholics are in a gravely
deficient position. Policarpo defused a potentially explosive situation
by decrying fundamentalist intransigence whereby the defense of our
truths becomes a focus of disunion. He also led a powerful
liturgy of sorrow for the Inquisition at the central Dominican basilica in
Lisbon. It was a bravura performance. If the Iberian-Latin American block wants
a moderate who can unite the church, Policarpo could emerge as a consensus
candidate.
Dario Castrillon Hoyos: For some time, conventional wisdom
has held that if a Latin American is to become pope, Castrillon Hoyos, 71 and a
Colombian, is the strongest candidate. Currently head of the Vatican office for
clergy, Castrillon Hoyos served as secretary general of CELAM from 1983 to
1991. As a pastor, Castrillon Hoyos earned high marks for defense of the poor,
including his willingness to challenge drug barons. Yet he was also one of the
fiercest opponents of liberation theology, an effort among progressive Latin
American Catholics to place the church on the side of progressive social
movements. In 1986, he said of Brazilian liberation theologian Leonardo Boff:
Boff will have to ask God to forgive him, and when God answers, then the
pope and I will know whether to forgive him or not. Castrillon Hoyos has
the distinction of having been elegized by one of the 20th centurys
foremost novelists, Colombian Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who once described him as
this rustic man with the profile of an eagle.
Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino: Ortega, 64 and the archbishop
of Havana since 1981, has earned respect for his cautious defiance of
Cubas communist regime. He is seen as a deft conciliator between the
notoriously divided Cuban exile community and Cubans who stayed behind after
the communist revolution. He spent 1967 in one of Castros labor camps
during a period of national history Cuban Catholics call the silencing of
God. He has said he feels very close to the pontificate of John
Paul II. Some observers believe that fellow Latin American cardinals may
promote his candidacy as a way to signal support of the Cuban church, while
others feel the parallels with Karol Wojtyla and Catholicism behind the Iron
Curtain are simply too obvious.
Norberto Rivera Carrera: Like other Latin American
churchmen, Rivera Carrera, 58, of Mexico is a strong advocate of social
justice. His criticism of globalization and political corruption so annoyed the
Salinas government that it threatened to adopt a law forbidding priests from
commenting on politics. He is strong-willed. He won a 1996 showdown with an
abbot who ran the basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, who had publicly
questioned the historical truth of Marys appearance to Juan Diego.
Although the abbot had been appointed for life by John XXIII, Rivera Carrera
succeeded in forcing him to resign. The cardinal is known as a conservative on
church matters. In 1990, as bishop of Tehuac, he closed a seminary that he
charged was teaching Marxist theology. The central problem in
classifying him with papabile is his age. Rivera Carrera was not
ordained until 1966, a year after Vatican II ended.
National Catholic Reporter, February 2,
2001
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